Sacco earned his B.A. in journalism from the University of Oregon in 1981. He was greatly frustrated with the journalist work that he found at the time, later saying, "couldn't find a job writing very hard-hitting, interesting pieces that would really make some sort of difference." After being briefly employed by the journal of the National Notary Association, a job which he found "exceedingly, exceedingly boring," and several factories, he returned to Malta, his journalist hopes forgotten. "...I sort of decided to forget it and just go the other route, which was basically take my hobby, which has been cartooning, and see if I could make a living out of that," he later told the BBC.Ben Arnold (August 27, 2004). Telephone interview with Joe Sacco (.ram file, source: Interview with Joe Sacco). BBC. URL accessed April 26, 2006.

He began working for a local publisher writing guidebooks. Returning to his fondness for comics, he wrote a Maltese romance comic named Imhabba Vera ("True Love"), one of the first comics in the Maltese language. "Because Malta has no history of comics, comics weren't considered something for kids," he told the Village Voice. "In one case, for example, the girl got pregnant and she went to Holland for an abortion. Malta is a Catholic country where not even divorce is allowed. It was unusual, but it's not like anyone raised a stink about it, because they had no way of judging whether this was appropriate material for comics or not."Hillary Chute (July 19, 2005). Stand Up Comics. Village Voice. URL accessed April 26, 2006.

Eventually returning to the United States, by 1985 Sacco had founded a satirical, alternative comics magazine called The Permanent Press in Portland, Oregon. When the magazine folded fifteen months later, he took a job at The Comics Journal as the staff news writer.Gary Groth (October 4, 2001). Joe Sacco, Frontline Journalist: Why Sacco went to Gorazde. The Comics Journal (a magazine owned and operated by Fantagraphics Books). URL accessed on April 26, 2006. This job provided the opportunity for him to create another satire: the comic Centrifugal Bumble-Puppy,Fantagraphics Books. Joe Sacco. URL accessed on April 25, 2006. a name he took from an overly-complicated children's toy in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

But Sacco was more interested in travelling. In 1988, he left the U.S. again to travel across Europe, a trip which he chronicled in his autobiographical comic Yahoo. The trip lead him towards the ongoing Gulf War (his obsession with which he talks about in Yahoo #2), and in 1991 he found himself nearby to research the work he would eventually publish as Palestine.

The Gulf War segment of Yahoo drew Sacco into a study of Middle Eastern politics, and he traveled to Israel and the Palestinian territories to research his first long work. Palestine was a collection of short and long pieces, some depicting Sacco's travels and encounters with Palestinians (and several Israelis), and some dramatizing the stories he was told. It was serialized as a comic book from 1993 to 2001 and then published in several collections, the first of which won an American Book Award in 1996.

Sacco next travelled to Sarajevo and Goražde near the end of the Bosnian War, and produced a series of reports in the same style as Palestine: the comics Safe Area Goražde and The Fixer, and the stories collected in War's End. Safe Area Goražde won the Eisner Award for Best Original Graphic Novel in 2001.

He has also contributed short pieces of graphic reportage to a variety of magazines, on subjects ranging from war crimes to blues, and is a frequent illustrator of Harvey Pekar's American Splendor. Sacco currently lives in Seattle.

Selected bibliography

Comics

• 1988-92: Yahoo #1-6. Collected and published in Notes from a Defeatist (2003), Fantagraphics Books, ISBN 1560975105.
• 1993-5: Palestine #1-9. Collected and published in Palestine (2001), Fantagraphics Books, ISBN 156097432X.
• 1994: Spotlight on the Genius that is Joe Sacco. Fantagraphics Books.
• 1997: Christmas with Karadzic, published in Zero Zero #15 (Fantagraphics Books) and later in the collection War's End (2005), Drawn and Quarterly, ISBN 1560975105.
• 1997: War Junkie, Fantagraphics Books, ISBN 1560971703.
• 1998: Soba, published in Stories from Bosnia #1 and later in the collection War's End (2005), Drawn and Quarterly, ISBN 1560975105.
• 1998: Stones, published in Zero Zero #25 (Fantagraphics Books).

Comic books and collections

• 2000: Safe Area Goražde: The War in Eastern Bosnia 1992-1995. Fantagraphics Books. ISBN 1560974702
• 2001: Palestine. Fantagraphics Books. ISBN 156097432x
• 2003: The Fixer: A Story from Sarajevo. Fantagraphics Books. ISBN 1896597602
• 2003: Notes from a Defeatist. Fantagrpahics Books. ISBN 1560975105
• 2005: War's End: Profiles from Bosnia 1995-96. Drawn and Quarterly. ISBN 1896597920

Notes and references

1960 births | Living people | Maltese comics artists | Maltese journalists

Joe Sacco | Joe Sacco | Joe Sacco | Joe Sacco